Customer Reviews

Trademark Championship No-limit & Pot-limit Instructional (Multi)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I bought this book. The book is written in a very informal style. However, the first day after I read it I finished 6th out of 1600 in one tournement in which I never finished higher than 400 in before. This guy knows his stuff, but do you have the discipline and patience to follow his advice? This is not a formula book, as in play this way, and this way only. TJ goes into the real aspect of NL tourny play, as in playing the player, and not making mistakes. I would rather you not read this book because I don't want anyone who follows it to play against me. But if you do read it pay attention, TJ's style is understated to say the least, but he lays out a system that will win you tournaments.

The stories throughout are worth the price alone. Add to that Cloutier (& Mcevoy) giving sound poker advice, and you get a book to look at for years to come.

The book is focused on both pot limit and no limit, and the advise is split evenly throughout. It offers a ton of strategy, practice hands and different view points (Cloutier and McEvoy are both great players, but play certain hands very differently). The writing is such that you feel that TJ is sitting next to you, telling you how to play - - an aspect that I really enjoyed. The book ends with tails from TJ, a collection of poker memories from his days traveling from game to game throughout Texas.

I'm a good limit and decent NL player, winning at both regularly. I wanted to take my game to the next level and this book did not help. There are no tricks or even organized suggestions in this book. It is a bunch of chat basically about being tight. I also bought Internet texas hold'em by Matthew Hilger and that book taught me tons. In fact my NL play improved as much from that book as it did from TJ's. Overall this book is a huge disappointment. It is repetetive and full of chatter which is interesting but can't improve your game. Send me $50 and I will tell you not to play KJ and Q10 in a NL game.

The flood of players coming into poker is overwhelming and the books to learn poker are many. Keep in mind that what looks like the same game is actually quite different. Low stakes limit holdem is much different than high stakes limit holdem and no limit and pot limit are significantly different than limit holdem. And finally no limit cash is different than no limit tournament play. That said this book is excellent for pot limit and even more so for no limit mid to high buy in tournaments.

A quick hint- the use of the word "Championship" in the McEvoy and Cloutier titles can and should be completely interchangeable with the word "tournament". That is the player these books are written for.

Many of the super tight approaches that Cloutier uses to be successful in tournament play are unprofitable in cash game play. Because the average player is so ultra loose, tighter is probably better than looser but again this is geared primarily for tournaments where if you lose your chips you are through for the day.

Survival is one of the most important ideas in tournament play but ultra tight in cash games will often get you too little action on your better hands. Overall a very good book for tournament play; Cloutier is a proven and durable winner and has much to teach the budding no limit holdem tournament player in this book. Several now well-known winners have credited this book as "the" reason they won. Worth reading IMO.

This is an excellent book on pot limit and no limit hold'em, but the title can be misinterpreted. When it comes to side games, the pot limit section is very helpful, but the no limit talk pretty much covers tournament play, specifically the WSOP. For no limit side games, I would recommend Super/System. Doyle and TJ seem to agree on most points, such as being careful with AA or KK etc. with only a few discrepancies, but they are different players with different styles. The only other benefit for side games that TJ's book has is that he gives more detail in the reasoning for why AJ, AQ, etc are high risk hands, but Doyle does cover it too.

Get this book, but if you want to play side games, get Super/System too.

I just reviewed Championship Hold'em a few moments ago and relayed there the way in which that book specifically helped me earlier in the week when I played in a couple of live tournaments out in Vegas. Now this book, independent of the other, was quite useful when I sat at the 1-2 No Limit game at the MGM Grand and also when I played the 2-4 at the Tropicana in their Poker Room.

Previous to reading these two books by Cloutier and McEvoy, I had finished three by Sklansky. I found that by following Sklansky's Small Stakes Hold'em I was playing far too conservatively to win. The blinds were eating me up and I rarely got any good cards to enter pots with. The opinions of Cloutier and McEvoy are far more practiceable I believe.

What we have here is a weed's eye view of what one should do when playing pot limit and no limit hold'em. There is some overlap with the other book but both are valuable on their own. The authors conclude that pot limit requires more skill than limit but that no limit requires the most skill of all.

While I was in Vegas, outside of the Rio where the World Series of Poker was being held, I did not see any mention of pot limit games but I've been in them a couple times online and have to state that it's one a most exciting variety of poker. It can get crazy fast and the book is quite insightful in describing the way in which one should specifically play.

The reader is given crystal clear advice on what to do in particular situations and the two authors seem to cover every single contingency that should arise. I was helped by the plain language and non-condescening prose of these two champions. I also liked the practice hands that were included. "Doing" definitely enhances learning and I found that to be the case here.

I'm not sure who this book is intended for. The down home, folksy style of writing makes it easy and accessible, like a good beginners book. But some topics that beginners absolutely need to learn, like pot odds and implied odds, are skimmed over and barely touched on. Other times, they'll simply repeat the same thing over and over again, with different ways of phrasing it. I get that you need "iron balls" to play hold 'em; no need to word it 5 different ways in the span of two pages.

The authors also like to make grand pronouncements and hold fast rules, as if they're reading from a stone tablet or something: "Thou shalt not draw to a flush unless ye have the nut flush draw AND two overcards!" (This is not a direct quote from the book, but they do mention this "concept".) Nevermind the absurdity of that statement; I just hate it when poker players say things as if they're the gospel truth. There are going to be times where you should put money into the pot with a non-nut flush draw or even simply two overcards, let alone both of them. The overall strategy described in this book is uber-tight, to say the least. The authors are much more concerned with protecting their own chips then they are with taking them from others. That's not a bad strategy for a beginner to start with, but if that's as far as your poker skills get, you're going to leave a lot of money on the table.

This book is not without it's highlights. The discussion on how to play small pocket pairs is refreshing, albeit only because two dissenting viewpoints are discussed. T.J. doesn't really like them, while Tom will play any pair. I mostly agree with Tom, especially if the stacks are deep. The implied odds you get from hitting a set make pairs a very profitable hand to play, as long as you can get action when you hit it. If you're at a table full of nits who don't pay off (players like T.J., for example) then you shouldn't waste your money with the small pairs, unless you're simply trying to steal the pot pre-flop (basically playing it like a semi-bluff).

Overall, I was very disappointed with this book. I think the main problem is it's target audience, or lack thereof. It seems like the authors wrote this with serious poker players in mind, but it reads more like a beginners book. If I had found this a few years back when I played ATC (any two cards) this would have been exactly what I needed. Now that I know how to play the good kind of loose, this book does nothing for me.

If you're a real tight player, you may find this book comforting. Everyone else should move along; there's nothing to see here. If this is "the bible of poker", as the back cover claims, then call me an atheist, cause I ain't buying it.

This is an excellent book on pot limit and no limit hold'em, but the title can be misinterpreted. When it comes to side games, the pot limit section is very helpful, but the no limit talk pretty much covers tournament play, specifically the WSOP. For no limit side games, I would recommend Super/System. Doyle and TJ seem to agree on most points, such as being careful with AA or KK etc. with only a few discrepancies, but they are different players with different styles. The only other benefit for side games that TJ's book has is that he gives more detail in the reasoning for why AJ, AQ, etc are high risk hands, but Doyle does cover it too.
Get this book, but if you want to play side games, get Super/System too.

[...]

Before reading this book, I was a decent NL holdem player, playing up to the $2/4NL games. I was a money making player, but i found that i was often playing extremely inconsistently, often losing my entire initial 400 buy-in, then having to climb the ladder back up, which i was usually able to do, although with much anguish and lack of patience.
This book took me to the next level. It clearly explained differences between starting hands in nolimit holdem and reasons why other hands (ie k/j q/j a/j) are trash. Although i had won plenty of money playing those hands in the past, i found that those hands were "leaks" in my game, as i would sometimes lose everything with them. I found that i was playing too many hands and overvaluing certain other hands like a/k.
Another aspect of this book that is not usually covered as well in other books is how to play your monster starting hand after the flop; how to be creative with your hands against different types of players; how to extract that last dime from yoru opponents.
As johnny cash puts it, "You got to know when to hold 'em; know when to fold 'em. Know when to walk away..."

This book contains many stories and not that much poker-tips.

The tips are pretty basic and many of them are told repeatedly throughout the book. The result of that is a book with 304 pages that contains a net total of maybe 100 pages of poker-lessons. Not good. Sure, the stories are very entertaining to read and the authors both have a LOT of experience, but I got this book to get better at tournaments. Not for entertainment reading.

I regret that I bought this book. Recently I threw myself into Dan Harrington's vol.1 and vol.2 and they're great. I highly recommend them. Actually I can't even think of a single bad thing to say about them.

Sorry T.J.!